As we approach the end of the season of Lent, I wanted to take this week to reflect on the first event of what is traditionally known as Holy Week, the last days of Jesus’ life before his crucifixion.
The Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday, a feast commemorating the event now known as the Triumphal Entry. As Passover—and Jesus’ arrest and conviction—approached, Jesus and his disciples made their way into Jerusalem. But several details ensured that this journey into the Holy Land would be set apart from previous pilgrimages.
The story, from Matthew 21:1-11:
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
“Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ ”The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”
The event is also recorded in Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-40, and John 12:12-19.
If, like me, you’ve grown up hearing this story, some of its more puzzling details may be shrouded by familiarity. Those are exactly the details I want to focus on this week.
A royal procession?
On January 10, 2024, Nick Saban announced his retirement from his illustrious college football coaching career, leaving the Alabama Crimson Tide without a leader.
By January 13, a new selection had been made, and Kalen Deboer was whisked onto a plane that would take him from Seattle, Washington, to his new home in Tuscaloosa.
The plane touched down at Tuscaloosa National Airport around 8:30 p.m. There was something different about TCL that night, though. The typically quiet airport was flooded with hundreds of Alabama fans, students and Tuscaloosa locals alike, ready to cheer on their new leader even as they nursed broken hearts over Saban’s departure. As Deboer stepped off the plane, he was greeted by signs, banners, “Roll Tides”, cell phone cameras flashing, and rousing renditions of “Dixieland Delight.”
A new king had arrived, and the city was celebrating.
In the modern world (or at least in Alabama), Deboer’s arrival in Tuscaloosa is about as close as we can get to a bona fide royal entry.
First-century inhabitants of the Roman empire, though, were no strangers to a procession.
For Roman generals, these events—literally called triumphs—were the highest honor one could achieve, usually celebrations of great military victories. The general, bedecked in royal garb, would be joined by members of the Roman Senate, his army, prisoners and spoils captured during the war, musicians, and other revelers as the parade wound through the city of Rome.
But the concept wasn’t uniquely Roman. When King David brought the Ark of the Covenant back into Jerusalem, it was attended with a parade of celebration.1 Likewise, when Solomon was anointed king, the event was accompanied by a celebration so vigorous that “the earth was split by their noise.”2
Jesus’ entry doesn’t quite match the ones his contemporaries would have been familiar with, though. There’s no parade of spoils, no purple and gold robe, no instruments, no political officials legitimating his claim; instead, there’s just a humble man, not carried by a war horse or chariot, but a young donkey.
Some even choose to depict Jesus as weeping as he enters the city, since the account in Luke directly precedes the story of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem’s lack of repentance and inevitable destruction.
Just as the status of Roman generals and ancient kings was communicated by their reception, so was Jesus’: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”3
A prophecy fulfilled?
The mode of transportation was intentional, too.
As Matthew makes explicit, Israel would recognize their king when he arrived because he would be “humble, and mounted on a donkey; on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”
The scripture Matthew is referencing here is Zechariah 9:9, a line from a messianic prophecy that tells of Israel’s ultimate redeemer. Richard B. Hays, in Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, argues that Matthew is also directing readers to Isaiah 62:11 here, a prophecy that declares the salvation of the Messiah not only for Jerusalem, but “to the end of the earth.”
“‘The Son of David’ who enters Jerusalem riding on ‘a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey,’ is not a conquering military hero but a lowly, gentle figure who is reshaping Israel’s messianic hope in a way that could hardly have been anticipated—a way, indeed, that will lead to the cross.”
Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels
So, the donkey that Jesus rides in on isn’t just an illustration of his humility, but ironically a declaration that he is the promised King and Messiah that Israel (and the world at large) has been waiting for all along. For the wise and discerning disciples, this symbolism is unmistakable.
A cry for help?
The crowd that attends Jesus may not be clued in to the exact details of what it means for him to be the Messiah, but they have figured out that there’s something different about this humble prophet. As Jesus enters the city, the people around him begin to cry,
“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
This cry is best understood as a reference to Psalm 118:25-26: Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!”
As illustrated in the text, “hosanna,” though often interpreted as a shout of praise, actually means something more like “save us, please.” The crowd, oppressed by Roman rule and generation after generation of exile, is desperate for salvation, for the ultimate judgment, for God’s mercy to rescue them once and for all.
Their salvation is coming, if not in the way they expect.
The crowds may be looking for the wrong thing, but they are looking at the right person.
What does it all mean?
As the tension builds before Jesus’ eventual arrest, torture, and crucifixion, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is an apocalypse4 of sorts: a chance for him to reveal who he truly is at the time that it matters most.
It’s impossible to say whether the crowd flocking around him understood the full implications of what they witnessed that day. The surrounding texts—primarily Jesus’ condemnations and lamentations over Jerusalem itself—seem to imply that they didn’t, and we know that even his own disciples fled in fear once push really came to shove.
But I also don’t think that this entire spectacle was for nothing. Jesus’ ministry was to bring a new kind of kingdom to earth, and a new kind of kingdom required a new kind of king. That’s what he displayed in all his actions, from healings and exorcisms to teaching and prophesying. It’s likely that the crowds simply couldn’t understand what he was getting at—at least, not until his resurrection and ascension. Everything he did, though, was an essential piece of the puzzle, an unskippable chapter in the only story that’s ever mattered.
Like the crowds before Jesus, we never approach God with perfect understanding; however, we can fix our eyes upon him and humble ourselves before him, being willing to do what it takes to bring his new kingdom to earth, now and forever.
From the archives:
2 Samuel 6:12-15
1 Kings 1:40
Isaiah 53:3
No end-times prophecy here: “Apocalypse” literally means “an uncovering” or “a revelation.”